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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26139262">War &amp; Bedevilment (with Artwork)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suis0u/pseuds/Suis0u'>Suis0u</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M, Nogitsune, also Stiles is possessed, both are kids, it's more like a introduction to that whole AU idea, so it's more a friendship/family thing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:29:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,841</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26139262</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suis0u/pseuds/Suis0u</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As the world goes down, Derek is actually quite happy to find a familier face again... but Stiles comes not alone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>209</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>War &amp; Bedevilment (with Artwork)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>You can see it as some kind of small one-shot. I just wanted to write down my thoughts to that idea and artwork I've done and maybe I'll add more in the future because I want to draw more to it. Just can't promise anything.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(1)</p>
<p>When the world goes down, it doesn‘t matter whether you‘re human or any kind of supernatural creature.</p>
<p>War doesn’t give a shit which race you belong to.</p>
<p>It doesn’t give a shit who or what you are.</p>
<p>Even your age doesn’t matter. </p>
<p>Your family doesn’t matter, nor your friends. </p>
<p>War doesn’t give a shit whether you live or will become just another of the thousands and thousands upon thousands already dead.</p>
<p>War only wants to never end. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> 							***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once there was a time when Derek hadn’t worried much about the wars of humans. When he saw or heard anything on the news, he was troubled of course. War should always be prevented, violence was never the right solution. At least, that was the mindset he was raised with. Especially when you’re naturally stronger than the average human, you have to be in control. You have to be patient and disciplined to live among them without make it to clear to anyone that you’re not human yourself.<br/>
Humans had always lived much too happily in blissful ignorance to accept that there might be more, whether it be creatures, beings or phenomena that extended beyond their normal horizon and could not be explained by science and technology.</p>
<p>This war, though, made no exceptions.</p>
<p>The whole damn fucking world was at war, had been for a few years now, and so far it didn’t look like there would be an end to it in the near future. </p>
<p>It had started with global political disagreements and sudden spreading diseases, with a global economic crisis and resource scarcity. The full extent of the climate change, which so many still refused to believe in, played its part as well. Increased natural disasters came and went and the general dissatisfaction with everything that was wrong with the world grew steadily. There had been many uprisings, rebellions and attacks of various kinds. </p>
<p>It was a slow and inexorable process over the course of years, and yet, they could have seen it coming... </p>
<p>The last straw that broke every remaining hope, however, was probably the fact that humanity – in addition to everything else happening – suddenly also had to learn that they were not alone after all. </p>
<p>Derek didn't remember the exact details, given he was only twelve years old back then. At that age, he was less interested in the news and events of the world, nor had he taken it really seriously. Whenever the older member of his family had talked about it, he got bored fast and it was quickly out of his head  and no trouble any more. </p>
<p>He had loved books and playing in the woods, making up his own fantastic stories. His family had a big house in the middle of the forest and it was all far more interesting than reality and all its catastrophes. </p>
<p>But then some idiot, some non-human-but-human-like supernatural assface had to present himself to the world and the eyes of humanity so clearly that their existence couldn't be denied any longer. ‘The wolf was no longer in sheep’s clothing,’ to quote a proverb from his grandparents. </p>
<p>After that, the world Derek knew perished faster and faster. Wars increased and no place was really safe any longer. All of that only because most people were afraid and hated everything they were afraid of or couldn’t understand because it didn’t fit into their small, limited world view. Also, wasn’t it a welcome distraction from all the other problems?</p>
<p>His family’s large house no longer existed. Derek wasn’t even sure if the old woods still existed, not to mention his family. </p>
<p>He had been twelve when his previous life ended, when he lost his family and thus his pack, and then he was on his own. </p>
<p>.<br/>
.<br/>
.</p>
<p>Now he was sixteen and he'd had enough of this bullshit. He'd had so damn much of this human bullshit, of war and the whole shitty situation he'd been trapped in for years. </p>
<p>He missed his family, his old home and the good times. He missed his friends and the carefree feeling he'd had when he ran through the forest and came up with new wild stories and adventures. </p>
<p>He missed his old life. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> 							***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Mieczysław Stilinski, or rather Stiles, as the boy was actually called, was a different story. </p>
<p>Derek had found him two years earlier, in the middle of the woods, all alone. How the boy had even managed to survive by himself at the age of six had been a mystery to him, but when he learned the truth, Derek wished he could forget it again right away. </p>
<p>He had remembered the Stilinskis. John and Claudia. The newly appointed young sheriff of their little town Beacon Hills and his pretty, always smiling wife. Both had been popular and respected. Even his own family, the Hales, liked the Stilinskis enough he might even have said there was some kind of friendship.</p>
<p>Derek at least remembered that Claudia had visited them rather often. He remembered how she talked to his mother and grandparents, how she loved teasing his uncle and how she always brought small, homemade gifts for him and his siblings. He remembered the many times she had caressed her belly with a warm smile while she was pregnant. Stiles had been a child she wanted for a long time.</p>
<p>Once, Derek had been allowed to touch her stomach very carefully and felt the movement underneath the skin, heard the heartbeat of this little creature and was completely overwhelmed by it. For his younger self, it had been fascinating.</p>
<p>Perhaps that was why he had found Stiles in the first place, or rather, why the boy was able to find him. Apparently, maybe, there had always been some kind of connection between them. </p>
<p>Even after Stiles was born, he always seemed pretty comfortable with wolves around him. Derek had seen his first steps and his first words, because everything always seemed to happen in his family's home, whenever Claudia and Stiles were visiting.<br/>
He remembered once going for a short walk through the woods behind the house with Stiles on his back, telling the boy one of the stories he had invented himself. Stiles loved listening to stories: Derek's own, fiction, fairy tales and storybooks of any kind read to him by his mother or one of the other Hales. Even as a toddler, he had the same radiant effect as his mother every time he smiled and clapped his hands, full of joy.<br/>
There wasn't much left of that now.</p>
<p>At first glance, Stiles had looked like an ordinary six-year-old boy, perhaps a little small and a bit too thin. A normal human would hardly have noticed the difference so quickly or at all.</p>
<p>But Derek noticed immediately when he suddenly saw Stiles standing there in the middle of the woods, just as he had been busy hunting for something to eat. He was sure he hadn't noticed, heard or smelled the boy before that moment. Stiles just suddenly appeared there, filthy and disheveled, in an old, tattered coat that must have belonged to his mother and an equally old and worn-out stuffed animal that Derek's own family had once given the boy as a Christmas present. Derek recognized it immediately.<br/>
At first glance, Stiles had just been a little lost boy, not much different from Derek himself. But the eyes no longer shone, and his smell, his whole presence did not work properly, not as Derek had remembered.</p>
<p>At first he blamed it on their circumstances and didn't give it any further thought. Fear and sadness changed a lot in a person and war could completely change the personality of everyone, whether child or adult. It was no different for Derek.</p>
<p>He knew better now. It wasn’t the war that had changed Stiles' presence and smell or let him become completely silent sometimes, where the boy could only stop talking for sleep in the past, and sometimes not even then.</p>
<p>There was something dark in him now. Something powerful and terrible. It was hard to name.</p>
<p>When Derek asked him how he had survived the last two years and how he had even found him, it had been strange to listen to Stiles' young voice. Especially since every word out of Stiles' mouth had started to slowly make Derek feel more and more scared, as he began to understand that it wasn't just Stiles who lived in this little body.</p>
<p>Stiles first referred to it as the boogeyman. Then as a speaking, disembodied shadow, similar to a four-legged animal, which had visited him within the first days after Stiles was separated from his parents during a big attack. This shadow promised to help him find his parents, find his family or friends. It promised not to leave him alone and to protect him, just as Derek had promised once, earlier in their lives. The shadow promised a lot. That Stiles would no longer be afraid, would not have to suffer from hunger or thirst. That nobody would be able to hurt him anymore.  Stiles just had to accept his help.<br/>
All he had to do was agree to accept him as his new companion. All he had to do was say yes three times. </p>
<p>And of course, after a few days, Stiles had said yes. What else could have been expected from a lost four-year-old child in that situation? </p>
<p> </p>
<p> 							***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They were scary stories his grandparents liked to tell. Tales of the boogeyman, of shadowy figures and horrific creatures that wandered between the worlds. Stories about monsters that haunted not only humans and had powers that were far beyond Derek's imagination at the time.<br/>
Stories about demons.</p>
<p>His grandparents knew many stories, and although they had scared Derek, he had always loved to hear them. His older sister had teased him often that he shouldn't believe all this creepy nonsense, but according to his own young experiences, there was a bit of truth in every story. If there were people who also could be monsters and werewolves, like most of his family, why should there not also be more dangerous things?</p>
<p>Stiles had certainly proven that to be true.</p>
<p>Never trust a being whose intentions you do not know! That was exactly what his father had always said.<br/>
Be careful and considerate in your actions and do not let yourself be confused by nice words.</p>
<p>But what should he do when it came to Stiles? This little boy who had brought a bit of light back into Derek's life with his appearance. Hope, a feeling of security at the sight of a familiar face. He had missed it in recent years. He had missed it so much and it would be stupid to turn it away.</p>
<p>At least until he knew about the existence of that other something in Stiles. It was a curse and a blessing at the same time. Derek hated it, but it had also saved Stiles' life and would surely be a great help in the future. </p>
<p>But at what price?</p>
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